Slaughter by John Lutz Page A

wouldn’t be overheard. No one else was in the diner except for three teenage girls giggling in a back booth, and a bearded guy at the counter almost embracing a mug of coffee as if he wished it were booze. “There is one thing,” Renz said. “The witness said the firebug’s ears stuck out.”
    Quinn was interested. “Both ears?”
    â€œI asked him that question,” Renz said. “He told me he doesn’t know. Might have been only one ear, pointed as it was.”
    â€œPointed?”
    â€œYeah. It stuck out and was pointed on top.” Renz took a huge bite of doughnut and chewed. “Newswoman called the firebug a gremlin, maybe because of the ears.”
    â€œLeprechauns’ ears stick out, too,” Quinn said. Not actually knowing.
    â€œBut they don’t plant bombs,” Renz said. “They’re too busy looking for rainbows and pots of gold.” He swallowed masticated doughnut. Quinn could hear his esophagus working to get the doughy mass down.
    â€œIf they want to give this guy a tag,” Quinn said, “the Gremlin is as good as any.”
    â€œI guess,” Renz said. “I wonder who thought it up?” He smiled like a croissant.

12
    Iowa, 1991
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    J ordan Kray’s twelfth birthday hadn’t been mentioned except for the traditional birthday spanking, which was expertly applied to his buttocks and upper thighs with a leather whip. The flesh hadn’t been broken but was raised with fiery welts that would sting for hours. He didn’t think he’d sleep at all tonight.
    His twin brother, Kent, hadn’t minded his birthday at all. He was given a Timex watch and allowed to stay up and watch television. Their father had told him it was for work done around the house and small farm, work that was seldom done by Jordan. Kent and Jordan’s mother smilingly agreed while she wielded the whip and her husband watched, fondling himself.
    It was a fairly normal night for the Krays, while five-year-old Nora slept peacefully in her bed in the far bedroom. Kent had told Jordan he’d heard their mother and father talking about moving Nora in with him and sending Jordan to Nora’s shoebox-size room. Alice and Jason—their mother and father—had talked about moving different kinds of equipment into the room with Jordan, but Kent, overhearing this, had no idea what they were planning.
    Whipping required exertion, and Alice stopped and stepped back, breathing hard.
    â€œLeave yourself alone and use this for a while,” she said, tossing Jason the coiled whip.
    Jason obeyed, but didn’t whip hard. Jordan knew this wasn’t an act of kindness; his father was simply more interested in other things. Kent lay on his stomach, pretending sleep while facing the wall.
    Jordan knew his brother was the better looking of the twins. His features were even and he resembled his mother, with her bold features and curly hair. Jordan had small, pinched features, and one of his ears stood straight out like an open car door and was kind of pointed. This, along with his diminutive size even for his age, lent him an elfin quality that would stay with him the rest of his life. The other ear—his left—stuck out a little and wasn’t pointed. The midwife who’d delivered the twins had learned from the firstborn, Jordan, who was a few minutes older than his twin, that identical twins weren’t alike in every respect. The protruding, pointed ear seemed to become even larger and more pointed after a schoolyard bully held Jordan in a headlock and rubbed the side of his face over and over on concrete. It was decided that Jordan had started the fight.
    Kent tried to explain to his mother that the accusers were lying, but Jordan received a harder than usual whipping, and was made to stand in a corner for yelping and waking up Nora.
    A week later Jordan tried to change the oil in the car but confused it with transmission